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Koji WAKAMATSU
Young yakuza Koji Wakamatsu was sent to prison in his twenties; there, he learned that power leads to repression and brutality. After his release, he wrote a book about his experience and found in filmmaking a way to expose the abuse of power. In 1959, he worked for television and, four years later, shot his first films. He was granted total artistic freedom, as long as sex and violence predominated. His “pinku eiga” (or pink films) attracted a lot of attention and, step by step, he realized that eroticism was necessary to the development of his political discourse; thus, the original constraint had become a necessity. In 1965, he created his own production company, Wakamatsu Production, and directed Secrets behind the Wall. The film was submitted to Berlin Film Festival that same year and was nominated for the Golden Bear. It caused general indignation and a diplomatic incident between Germany and Japan ; Wakamatsu’s camera had thus become an active political weapon exposing the faults of a hypocritical government and the mouthpiece of the identity crisis of young people. Wakamatsu’s films, shot frenetically (around ten films a year), with a simplistic touch in their bare staging that reminds Jean-Luc Godard, but with sexual excesses and brutality that are typical of exploitation films, are virulent anarchist manifestos that are still maddening Japanese authorities. Yet, several of his films were selected in the most prestigious international film festivals, from Berlin to Cannes, through New York, London or Buenos Aires. With United Red Army, which was awarded two prizes in Berlin Film Festival in 2008 and is still touring international festivals all over the world, Koji Wakamatsu is under the international spotlight again. His talent is confirmed once again in 2010 when his film Caterpillar wins the Best Actress Silver Bear for Shinobu Terajima at Berlin International Film Festival.
